Marketwatch has an interesting article, entitled 'This recession looks fat on you', subtitled 'Busting wallets and bursting waistlines'

<link>

which reports that many of us are opting for "more affordable grab-and-go alternatives like chips, cookies, candy and now snack wraps and mini-burgers in between meals and often in lieu of a meal,"

Mintel, the market research firm, is tracking double-digit sales gains for salty snacks as well as popcorn and cheese snacks this year. Potato chip sales are up 22% this year compared with 2007 while tortilla chips sales are rising 18%.

"Snacks are less and less the hunger-soothing bridge between formal meals," said Kimberly Egan, chief executive of the Center for Culinary Development. "They have become valuable gastronomical events in their own right."

more and more consumers are eating at home. But here's the catch: Most are not actually making anything. They're microwaving frozen pizza or mixing pancake batter with water. They're bringing home fast food and serving it in pretty dishes as a meal. "Approximately 20% of all meals prepared in our homes from 1990 to 2007 involved the use of a microwave -- until last year when usage rose 10%," Mr. Balzer says. The time someone who cooked did so by slaving over the stove plunged to 33% this year compared with 53% in 1985.

Not surprising then are the rising rates of obesity and diabetes. The obesity rate climbed more than one percentage point to 26.4% in year-over-year comparisons in September, according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

Diabetes rates climbed in tandem, up to 11.3% of American adults. That's about 26 million Americans. More disturbing, however, is the pattern. If the current trend continues, a whopping 15% of American adults -- or more than 37 million -- will be living with diabetes by the end of 2015, according to Gallup.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My reaction to all this is, what are these Americans thinking? Is this any way to win a class war? Give yourself diabetes just as the government forces you to pay for your own private health insurance. (For when individuals are mandated to buy insurance, what is to prevent companies from stopping to provide their employees that insurance?).

When I was poor as a young man (brown) rice and beans were my staples, and it was nutritious and not very fattening. That is what much of the poor third world has lived on since the dawn of civilization. But the frankenfoods Americans heat up in their microwave ovens or grab and gobble right off the store racks are both disgusting and deleterious to health. As George Carlin would have said, 'Not too bright, folks'.